Gaza death toll nears 30,000 as aid groups warn of ‘imminent’ famine

A Palestinian boy cries as he stands amid debris in the Maghazi camp. (AFP)
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Updated 28 February 2024
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Gaza death toll nears 30,000 as aid groups warn of ‘imminent’ famine

  • One in six children under 2 years of age in northern Gaza are suffering from acute malnutrition
  • WFP “is ready to swiftly expand and scale up our operations if there is a ceasefire agreement,” WFP Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau said

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: The Gaza war’s reported Palestinian death toll neared 30,000 Wednesday as fighting raged in the Hamas-run territory despite mediators insisting a truce with Israel could be just days away.
Another 91 people were killed in overnight Israeli bombardment, the health ministry said.
Mediators from Eygpt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to find a path to a ceasefire amid the bitter fighting, with negotiators seeking a six-week pause in the nearly five-month war.
After a flurry of diplomacy, mediators said a deal could finally be within reach — reportedly including the release of some Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 attack in exchange for several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel.
“My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire” but “we’re not done yet,” US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday.
Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said Doha was “hopeful, not necessarily optimistic, that we can announce something” before Thursday.
But he cautioned that “the situation is still fluid on the ground.”
Doha has suggested the pause in fighting would come before the beginning of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month which starts on March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar.
Hamas had been pushing for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza — a demand rejected outright by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But a Hamas source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the deal might see the Israeli military leave “cities and populated areas,” allowing the return of some displaced Palestinians and humanitarian relief.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 29,954 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The war was triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Militants also took about 250 hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Since the war began, hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been displaced, with nearly 1.5 million people now packed into the far-southern city of Rafah, where Israel has warned it plans to launch a ground offensive.
Those who remain in northern Gaza have been facing an increasingly desperate situation, aid groups have warned.
“If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” the World Food Programme’s deputy executive director Carl Skau told the UN Security Council Tuesday.
His colleague from the UN humanitarian office OCHA, Ramesh Rajasingham, warned of “almost inevitable” widespread starvation.
The WFP said no humanitarian group had been able to deliver aid to the north for more than a month, with aid blocked from entering by Israeli forces.
“I have not eaten for two days,” said Mahmud Khodr, a resident of Jabalia refugee camp in the north, where children roamed with empty pots.
“There is nothing to eat or drink.”
Most aid trucks have been halted, but foreign militaries have air dropped supplies including on Tuesday over Rafah and Gaza’s main southern city Khan Yunis.
What aid does enter Gaza passes through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt, fueling a warning from UN chief Antonio Guterres that any assault on the city would “put the final nail in the coffin” of relief operations in the territory.
Israel has insisted it would move civilians to safety before sending troops into Rafah but it has not released any details.
Egypt has warned that an assault on the city would have “catastrophic repercussions across the region,” with Cairo concerned about an influx of refugees.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Tuesday that Israel will “listen to the Egyptians and their interests,” adding that Israel “cannot conduct an operation” with the current large population in Rafah.
Ahead of the threatened ground incursion, the area has been hit repeatedly by Israeli air strikes.
An AFP correspondent reported that overnight several air strikes hit the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, as well as Zeitun in central Gaza.
The army said it had “killed a number of terrorists and located weapons” in Zeitun.
It said two more soldiers had died in the fighting in Gaza, taking its overall toll to 242 since the start of the ground offensive on October 27.


Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed

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Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed

TADAMON: Security forces in Syria said on Monday that they arrested three people involved in the execution of hundreds of civilians by government forces in Damascus in 2013, two years after the country’s 13-year civil war began.
Dozens of police and security trucks lined the streets of Tadamon, a Damascus suburb near the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, where they carried out the arrests in the same streets that once bore witness to mass executions. Masked, rifle-wielding men moved through hollowed-out buildings, remnants of a war that turned the district into a front line between government forces and opposition fighters.
In 2022, a leaked video dated April 16, 2013, appeared to contain harrowing footage of the executions. The near seven-minute clip showed members of Syria’s notorious Military Intelligence Branch 227 leading a line of about 40 blindfolded prisoners, their hands tied behind their backs, into an abandoned building in Tadamon. One by one, the gunmen pushed or kicked the prisoners into a trench filled with old tires, shooting them as they fell.
One of the three men arrested was Monzer Al-Jazairi, a resident of the Zahira neighborhood and a former operative with the military security that operated before the fall of Bashar Assad in December 2024.
“We used to bring detainees arrested at checkpoints, put them under the buildings here and execute them, and then after we’re done, explode the buildings over them,” Al-Jazairi told The Associated Press. It was unclear whether Al-Jazairi, flanked by security men as he spoke, was speaking under duress or voluntarily.
“Every batch constituted around 25 (people),” he said, adding that “around one week” passed between one batch and the next. He estimated that he and his colleagues killed “around 500” people.
Damascus Security Chief Lt. Col. Abdul Rahman Al-Dabbagh corroborated the number, citing additional confessions from those arrested.
“Many of those killed used to be collected at checkpoints and security (detention) centers, brought to Tadamon neighborhood, where they were executed,” Al-Dabbagh told the AP.
The two other arrested suspects were identified as Somer Mohammed Al-Mahmoud and Imad Mohammed Al-Mahmoud.
Years after the Syrian war’s worst massacres and mass disappearances, most alleged crimes have not been investigated and remain unpunished.
Since Assad’s ouster, Syrian security forces, under the new leadership led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, have been tracking down and arresting remnants of the former government and military across the country.
“The operation is ongoing to apprehend all those involved in violations and massacres against Syrians,” Al-Dabbagh said.

Palestinian detainee says he was tortured in Israeli detention center

Tarek Rabie Safi, a freed Palestinian prisoner, is carried as he is greeted after being released by Israel.
Updated 17 February 2025
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Palestinian detainee says he was tortured in Israeli detention center

  • “(There was) no (decent) food, or drinks, or (medical) treatment. My arm was broken, and they did not treat me, and they did not get me checked by a doctor”: Safi

KHAN YOUNIS: Palestinian medic and ambulance worker Tarek Rabie Safi, freed from an Israeli jail as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, said he was underfed and abused during almost a year in captivity.
Safi, a 39-year-old father of two, was released along with 368 other Palestinian detainees on Saturday, after Hamas freed three Israeli hostages from Gaza.
Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages have both complained of harsh treatment in the hands of their captors.
“I was held by the Israeli army in the Gaza ‘envelop’, which is Sde Teiman where I stayed for four months (and I was subjected to) torture of our bodies (physical torture) and hunger,” a gaunt-looking Safi said.
“(There was) no (decent) food, or drinks, or (medical) treatment. My arm was broken, and they did not treat me, and they did not get me checked by a doctor.”
The Israeli military rejected the claims in an emailed response to Reuters’ queries, saying detainees are given food and drink regularly and have access to medical care, and that if necessary, they are transferred to a medical facility with advanced capabilities.
Safi, who was detained in March last year near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said a detainee who was in the same room with him had died as a result of his treatment.
“A young man who was with me was martyred, Mussab Haniyeh, may God have mercy on him, in the same room. This young man was strong, but due to the lack of food, lack of drinks and frequent torture, he was martyred in front of our eyes,” Safi said.
After four months in the detention center, Safi was moved to other Israeli jails until his release in Khan Younis, where he was reunited with his family in emotional scenes.
The Israeli military said it is aware of incidents of detainee deaths, but cannot comment since investigations are pending.
The Palestinian Prisoner Association, which documents Israeli detentions of Palestinians, said that Israel is carrying out “systematic crimes and revenge attacks” against prisoners, most recently in the Israeli-occupied West Bank’s Ofer prison.
Abdullah Al-Zaghari, head of the association, said that the group had documented horrific testimonies, including severe beatings and shackling prisoners for days and weeks without food or water.
Reuters is unable to independently confirm the reports.
Human rights group Amnesty International said last year that 27 released detainees it had interviewed consistently described being subjected to torture on at least one occasion during their arrest.


Israel will leave troops in 5 locations in Lebanon after Tuesday deadline, military spokesperson says

Israeli army forces patrol in the village of Kfarshuba in southern Lebanon on February 17, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 17 February 2025
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Israel will leave troops in 5 locations in Lebanon after Tuesday deadline, military spokesperson says

  • “We need to remain at those points at the moment to defend Israeli citizens, to make sure this process is complete,” military spokesperson said
  • Lebanon’s President Aoun said Monday he was “afraid that the complete withdrawal will not be achieved tomorrow”

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Israel will keep troops in several posts in southern Lebanon past a February 18 deadline for them to withdraw, a military spokesperson said on Monday, as Israeli leaders sought to reassure northern residents that they can return home safely.
Under a truce deal brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah since early October.
That deadline was extended to February 18, but Israeli and Lebanese officials as well as foreign diplomats had anticipated that the military would retain some troops on parts of the Lebanese side of the border.
“We need to remain at those points at the moment to defend Israeli citizens, to make sure this process is complete and eventually hand it over to the Lebanese armed forces,” military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told a briefing with reporters, adding that the move was in accordance with the mechanism of the ceasefire agreement.
He said the locations were close to Israeli communities or occupying strategic vantage points overlooking Israeli towns like Metula, at the northernmost point of Israel.
“Basically the security situation is very, very complex,” he said.
A Lebanese official and two foreign diplomats said Israeli troops would likely leave villages in south Lebanon but stay in overlook points to reassure residents of northern Israel who are set to return home on March 1.
Tens of thousands of people were displaced from northern Israel by Hezbollah rocket fire and more than a million people in Lebanon fled Israeli air strikes in the year-long war conflict playing out in parallel with the Gaza war.
The fighting ended in late November with a truce ordering Israeli troops to withdraw from south Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters and arms to leave and Lebanese troops to deploy.
The ceasefire deal stipulates that only “official military and security forces” in Lebanon can carry arms and that the Lebanese government must prevent any transfers of arms or related material to non-state armed groups.
Its language — sharper than previous United Nations Security Council Resolutions — appears to spells out ways that the Lebanese state will be expected to constrain Hezbollah, diplomats and analysts said.
The deal’s implementation is being overseen by a committee chaired by the US and France.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun, who has said Israeli troops should leave by the February 18 deadline, said on Monday he was “afraid that the complete (Israeli) withdrawal will not be achieved tomorrow.”
The two diplomats said talks were still underway on alternatives to Israeli troops staying, including possibly deploying more UN peacekeepers to the border.
France has proposed that UN forces including French troops replace Israeli forces at key border points.
Hezbollah said on Sunday that Israeli forces still in Lebanon after Tuesday would be considered an occupying force.
Israel occupied southern Lebanon for 22 years, withdrawing in 2000 after continued attacks on its positions in occupied Lebanese territory by Hezbollah, founded in 1982 to counter Israel’s invasions.
In the latest war, Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire for nearly a year, mostly around the border. Israel significantly escalated in September, eliminating much of Hezbollah’s top leadership in air strikes and sending ground troops into south Lebanon.


UN appeals for $6 billion for Sudan crisis aid in 2025

Updated 17 February 2025
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UN appeals for $6 billion for Sudan crisis aid in 2025

  • The aim is to provide assistance to nearly 26 million people this year, UN bodies say
  • Civil war has displaced 12 million people, of whom around 3.5 million have fled the country

GENEVA: The UN appealed Monday for $6 billion to provide desperately-needed aid to people in war-ravaged Sudan and millions of refugees fleeing “appalling” conditions.
The aim is to provide assistance to nearly 26 million people this year, the United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA and refugee agency UNHCR said in a joint appeal.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been locked in a brutal conflict between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The UN agencies said the civil war has displaced 12 million people, of whom around 3.5 million have fled the country.
They stressed that at the same time, nearly two-thirds of Sudan’s population needs emergency aid, as swathes of the country face famine conditions.
“Sudan is a humanitarian emergency of shocking proportions,” UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said in a statement.
“Famine is taking hold. An epidemic of sexual violence rages. Children are being killed and injured. The suffering is appalling.”
Famine conditions have already been reported in at least five locations in Sudan, including in displacement camps in Darfur and in the western Nuba Mountains, the UN statement said.
And “catastrophic hunger is expected to worsen by May when the lean season begins,” it warned.
The UN said it was appealing for $4.2 billion to reach nearly 21 million people inside Sudan with life-saving aid and protection.
Fletcher said the UN plan would provide “a lifeline to millions.”
The United Nations said it would also need $1.8 billion to support 4.8 million people – both Sudanese refugees and their host communities – in the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan and Uganda.
“Today, one-third of Sudan’s entire population is displaced,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in the statement, highlighting that “the consequences of this horrific and senseless conflict spread far beyond Sudan’s borders.”
The UN cautioned that without immediate funding, two-thirds of refugee children would be denied access to primary education, “threatening an entire generation.”
And “up to 4.8 million refugees and host community members will continue to face severe food insecurity, with at least 1.8 million going without food assistance,” it said, warning that “already strained health systems may collapse.”
Last year, humanitarian organizations received $1.8 billion for Sudan – 66 percent of the $2.7 billion requested – and managed to reach more than 15.6 million people across the country.
They also provided life-saving food assistance to over a million people in neighboring countries, as well as medical support to half a million and protection services to over 800,000, the statement said.


Israel kills Hamas official in southern Lebanon

Civil defence workers and Lebanese soldiers gather next to remains of burned car that was hit by an Israeli drone strike.
Updated 42 min 58 sec ago
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Israel kills Hamas official in southern Lebanon

  • Israeli military said Muhammad Shaheen was the head of the operations department of Hamas in Lebanon
  • A Hamas official confirmed Shaheen’s killing to Reuters

BEIRUT: Israel killed on Monday a Hamas leader in southern Lebanon’s Sidon area, the Israeli military and a Hamas official said.
The military said Muhammad Shaheen was the head of the operations department of Hamas in Lebanon and that he had recently been involved in promoting “terrorist plots” with Iranian direction and funding from Lebanese territory against Israeli citizens.


A Hamas official confirmed Shaheen’s killing to Reuters.
An Israeli strike on a car in Lebanon’s southern port city of Sidon targeted an official in the Palestinian militant group, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters earlier.
Lebanon’s state news agency said rescuers had removed one body from the car but did not identify the victim.
The Israeli military has been carrying out strikes against members of Hamas, allied Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and other factions in Lebanon, in parallel with the war in Gaza.
Those armed groups have launched rockets, drones and artillery attacks across the border into northern Israel.
Under a truce brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Iran-backed Hezbollah since early October.
That deadline was later extended to February 18, but Israel’s military requested that it keep troops in five posts in southern Lebanon, sources told Reuters last week.